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Braized Fillet of Beef

A slow‑cooked beef fillet braised in stock, served with tomato or piquant sauce and aspic jelly garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Braized Fillet of Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Trim the fat and suet from the fillet of beef.

  2. Lard the trimmed fillet.

Braise

  1. Place the larded fillet in a braising pan on a strainer.

  2. Add second stock and water around the beef and bring to a boil.

  3. Reduce heat and simmer gently for about 2 hours, or until tender.

  4. Check doneness with a sharp skewer; it should pass through easily.

  5. Let the beef sit in the broth overnight.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove the beef from the broth.

  2. Untie the fillet.

  3. Trim the fillet nicely.

  4. Warm the broth in the pan.

  5. Strain off the liquid.

  6. Discard the vegetables.

  7. Return the beef to the pan with the strained broth and heat through.

  8. Serve with tomato sauce or a piquant sauce, or garnish with aspic jelly.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Celery + tomatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Pepper + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Carrot + tomatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,606 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Fillet of beef
Forms the main body of the dish; slow braising makes the lean meat tender.
Second stock
Supplies liquid and flavour, gently cooking the beef and forming the sauce.
Stockpot vegetables
Flavour the braising liquid as they simmer, then are discarded.
Aspic jelly
Sets into a glossy, cool layer used as a garnish.

The step that matters

Simmering gently until tender. A rolling boil toughens muscle fibres and can break up the meat. Gentle simmering lets connective tissue soften slowly so the fillet becomes tender while staying intact.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pepper, carrot, celery, tomato):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Parsnipfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, carrot, celery, tomato. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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